Crossword-Solution: TIKIS 5 letters, 36 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 9

For weeks he let them perish, gave never a helping sign, But sat on his oiled platform to commune with the divine, But sat on his high terrace, with the tikis by his side, And stared on the blue ocean, like a parrot, ruby-eyed.

But this other remedy is more original: a Marquesan, dying of this discouragement—perhaps I should rather say this acquiescence—has been known, at the fulfilment of his crowning wish, on the mere sight of that desired hermitage, his coffin—to revive, recover, shake off the hand of death, and be restored for years to his occupations—carving tikis (idols), let us say, or braiding old men’s beards.

The smaller tikis, or, more strictly speaking, hei-tiki, such as this, are carved as representations in miniature of the larger images, and are worn as neck ornaments.

They are, enumerating them in the order of their purity of race and completeness of their isolation: (1) The Mincopies, or Andaman Islanders; (2) the Congo pygmies (comprising the tribes known as the Akkas, or Tiki-Tikis, the Bambutis, the Watwas, the Obongos, and Bayagas); (3) the bushmen of South Africa; (4) the Aetas of the Philippine Islands; (5) the Samangs of Malacca, and very similar isolated pygmy tribes which have been observed in New Guinea, and also in the Solomon Islands and in Formosa.

But this other remedy is more original: a Marquesan, dying of this discouragement--perhaps I should rather say this acquiescence--has been known, at the fulfilment of his crowning wish, on the mere sight of that desired hermitage, his coffin--to revive, recover, shake off the hand of death, and be restored for years to his occupations--carving tikis (idols), let us say, or braiding old men's beards.